We bring you our guide to living well in the world’s capitals, from exhibitions to cinema, food, drink, fashion, music and beyond. Just call it culture and take it, it’s yours.

LONDON, FRIDAY 7th MARCH – SUNDAY 9th MARCH 2014

Hello? Room service? A bottle of Perrier-Jouet pronto.
Hot on the heels of Only Lovers Left Alive, Jim Jarmusch’s cinematic offering starring Tilda Swinton, the actress returns as part of the new unmissable Wes Anderson, alongside leading man Ralph Fiennes and a heavily star studded cast. Check in at The Grand Budapest Hotel.

The film attentively recounts, with Anderson’s usual pin sharp attention to detail, the  adventures of Gustave H., a concierge at a grandly styled European hotel and his involvement in the theft and recovery of a priceless Renaissance painting. Throw in the battle for an enormous family fortune, incredible locations, jaw dropping interiors and scores of aristocratic ladies and you’re onto a winner.

If you really want to feel what this film has to offer then get involved with The Secret Cinema’s event on Saturday evening. It’s fully immersive, which means being escorted by purple-suited bell boys into Anderson’s Alpine world for an evening of participatory theatre, cocktails and Sauerkraut soup followed by a screening. Five stars.

The Grand Budapest Hotel Secret Cinema Event: £53.50, Location TBA

Does my world look flat in this?
Once again the world is flat, an expansive new exhibition by American artist Haim Steinbach at Hyde Park’s Serpentine Gallery includes key works from his forty year career, during which he has redefined the status of the common object in art.

See how his poetic reimaging of our daily rituals are given a new perspective in the way he displays and arranges the usually mundane ephemera we waste or collect in our daily lives.

You’ll never look at a box of Frosties and a rubber dog chew in the same way again.

Haim Steinbach: Once Again the World is Flat
Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens, London W2 3XA
Until  21st April 2014

Beam me up Scotty!
Over at the Barbican there’s another highly anticipated exhibition taking residence in unusual space The Curve – where most recently visitors queued endlessly to see Random International’s experimental work Rain Room. Get your skates on and avoid a snaking sea of puffa jackets and backpacks to experience the phenomenally well produced Momentum, a carefully choreographed sequence of light, sound and movement.

Momentum consists of twelve pendulums that activate light and sound as they swing, drawing attention to the Curve’s awesome arc, inviting you to journey through the space guided by your heightened senses. Trippy and techy.

United Visual Artists: Momentum
The Curve, Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS

“I work in a hotel. I know what you’re probably thinking, and no, I am not a hooker. Not unless you’re not a cop.
”
The romantic decadence of Paris nightlife in the 1920s and 30s, captured most beautifully and famously in the works of Brassai, gets a second life in a series of sensuous photographs shot on location in former Parisian bordellos by Vee Speers, an Australian artist who has lived in Paris herself for more than 20 years.

As Karl Lagerfeld says, ‘She shows beauty where beauty can be terribly absent’ and this series is testament to the beauty of female sensuality shot in some of the French capital’s oldest, lavish interiors.

Vee Speers: Bordello
The Little Black Gallery, 13a Park Walk, London SW10 0AJ
Until 12th April 2014

From Bordellos to a Sex on the Beach…
If you want to sample something in the same air of decadence as the Speers exhibition then swap French courtesans for The Artesian at The Langham. It’s been rated the best bar in the world and does the most delicious and sophisticated Sex on the Beach ever. (Seriously, try it). Start with that or keep it rum-based and leave it up to the bartenders to serve you right.

There’s no smoke without fire
If you don’t know already then it’s time to start getting excited about a rather special new restaurant, bar and hotel in London from André Balazs, the owner of the legendary Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood and NYC’s The Mercer.

Chiltern Firehouse has been open less than a fortnight and already it’s established itself as the place to be, fantastic for just about everything: people watching, drinking, scoffing alongside the A-List and generally just living it. The alfresco tables will be like gold dust come summer.

If head chef Nuno Mendes’s DIY steak tartare is good enough for Kate Moss then it’s good enough for you too – that’s if you get through their rigorous screening process implemented when accepting bookings.

Chiltern Firehouse, 1 Chiltern Street, Marylebone, London W1U 7PA